Anti-Corruption Commission is now reportedly in its final stages of investigating graft charges and prosecuting three top former housing officials.
The most high-profile suspect under the graft watchdog’s scrutiny is former state minister for housing Abdul Mannan Khan. The other alleged corrupt officials are former public works secretary Dr Khandakar Showkat Hossain and former Rajuk chairman Nurul Huda.
On August 21 last year, the ACC submitted charge sheets against the former junior minister in three cases, hearing on which would reportedly start within a few days at Dhaka District and Sessions Judge Court.
According to case documents, Mannan had accumulated illegal wealth worth Tk75.04 lakh and concealed information about wealth worth Tk4.60 lakh.
In an affidavit submitted to the Election Commission for the tenth parliamentary election, the former state minister said he had wealth worth Tk11.03 crore, which was 107 times higher than the amount he declared for the ninth national polls.
He mentioned in the affidavit that Tk1.45 crore had come from fish farming, a claim which the commission found to be untrue. Mannan also concealed information in his tax returns about his house in Dhaka’s Dohar area valued at around Tk2 crore, while the ACC further found proof of Tk3 crore worth illegal wealth under the name of his wife Hasina Sultana.
However, Mannan denied all these charges during his interrogation by the commission, a top-level ACC official told the Dhaka Tribune on condition of anonymity.
Probe against former secretary
As the graft cases against the ex-state minister is set to go to the court, the ACC is also readying to prepare a charge sheet against former housing secretary Khandakar Showkat.
Earlier, three cases were filed against him on April 22, 2014, for his alleged abuse of power to secure Rajuk plots for himself and his family.
An investigation report against Showkat was sent to the chief of the ACC’s Special Inquiry & Investigation Cell on November 29, a well placed source told the Dhaka Tribune. If the probe report is approved, the ACC will place a charge sheet before the court.
The source added that the commission has so far found that the former secretary had illegally acquired two flats in the capital as well as abusing his power to influence the allocation of Rajuk plots.
He reportedly concealed information to apply for and secure Rajuk flats, something which housing secretaries are not allowed to do.
Showkat reportedly also confessed to the ACC about buying a flat in capital’s Tejturi area in 1997 when he was an additional deputy commissioner of Narail.
Ex-Rajuk chief under radar
The commission started its inquiry against former Rajdhani Unnayan Kortipakkha (Rajuk) chairman Engineer Nurul Huda last year, after recording complaints over irregularities in Rajuk plot allotment.
Sources at the ACC said Nurul Huda allegedly secured a Purbachal project plot allotted for the indigenous community for his own wife – who is not an indigenous person.
On November 2, ACC probe official Julfikar Ali asked the former Rajuk chief to submit the documents regarding the plot to the commission.
However, following the move, Nurul Huda has reportedly applied to the Rajuk for returning that plot.
Still, the ACC would summon him soon for the third time, an official of the commission said.
